The hood support struts on my wife's 2011 335is Coupe died suddenly, as in while it was on a lift at the dealer! The dealer had a battery charger on it and when the hood slammed down it left a couple of dimples in the hood. They had their PDR guy fix it and when they showed me i couldn't tell where it was. I tried lifting the hood, and sure enough, dead as a door nail. The scary part is that she washed her car the previous weekend and wiped down the engine bay, as she does every time she washes her car. That would have caused some serious damage if it hit her in the noggin!
The car will be sold very soon so I bought some 3rd party struts on Amazon and had them installed in 2 days. They were made by Beneges and cost $23.69 for both, considerably cheaper than OEM and they have a lifetime warranty (not that I really care about that at this point).
But this got me thinking about my 2006 Z4 M Roadster, five years older than her car. The struts will still hold the hood at any position I want and I've never had the support struts fail on any other car I've owned, but better safe than sorry. The hood on the Z4 is considerably longer and heavier than the 335is. I wouldn't want it falling on me while I'm under the hood.
OEM costs $54.92 each at getbmwparts.com. I did a search on Amazon and got these results:
https://smile.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb...MW+51237016178.
So, which ones would you buy, the OEM at $54.92 each, or one of these 3rd party struts, at less than half that for two?